Cravings
by i'mpeckable
Summary: Missing scene. The pizza conversation, and necessity is the mother of invention.


Summary: Movie-verse. Just a little sketch, missing scene-type, that's been nibbled on by a not-fully-developed plot bunny, and enhanced by my own cravings during a dieting episode. Also poked and prodded by the logic problem of making pizza out of C-rations, which twisted around to MRE's-or was it the other way 'round? (oh, crap, a siamese plot bunny!). This whole convolution was set off by the pizza conversation between John and Jeff.

Written for and encouraged by not-so-wee-anymore Hamish.

Rating: PG-hint of swearing. Yes, someone's mouth should get washed out with soap :) Later.

Spoilers: None. Well, maybe a little, but only if you haven't seen the movie yet.

Disclaimer: Don't own the Thunderbirds. Forgot who they were sold to, but it wasn't me. I just play with them, and try to remember to put them back when I'm done. (dusts off characters so no one sees the fingerprints)

****

Cravings

His mind was only partially occupied by system PMCS he was running, mechanically signing off on each area. It was a procedure he could do in his sleep. In fact, Thunderbird Five really didn't need him to run this protocol at all. But Brains understood the need to check and verify for one's own peace of mind, and so the manual checks existed. Existed, and yet did not completely occupy his mind.

The thought of pizza still nagged him.

John had hoped the task would reroute his mind from its current fixation. Funny, how some thoughts would just ricochet around in your head, until they were all you could think of. Then again, some days were conducive to that, and this had been one.

Discarding the half-eaten energy bar, he paused the checklist program and reviewed the monitors. Vladivostok had politely refused help with the forest fire, and its priority had been downgraded appropriately. Apparently, one assist per day was all that country allotted. But things could still go to hell in a handbasket quickly, and the Russians might change their mind about needing International Rescue's help.

Screen-wise, the typhoon had only crawled a few millimeters. Taking its own sweet time, probably building strength, although it could just as easily swerve off into the middle of the Pacific and die there. He watched it idly, the characteristically pie-shaped spiral thick with the yellows and reds of thermal imaging interspersed with odd-shaped dark spots. _Just like a pizza._

John swore, thumped the panel in front of him, and stood up. His knuckles stung, but it still wasn't enough to dislodge that damn craving. Rubbing the abused hand absently, he strode to the middle of the station's nerve center. He was of half a mind to call the island, roust Gordon out of bed, and have him deliver. Little brother owed him one anyway, and Ohana made a pretty good pizza. His hand paused at the call switch.

Dad would give him hell for it, though, and probably more for waking Ohana than anything else. He sighed, and pushed the thought away. Besides, it'd put him in the red at the Tracy brothers you-owe-me bank. And owing Gordon could be hazardous to one's health.

On impulse, he headed toward the locker where the additional food stores were kept. Thunderbird Five's tiny galley had room for only a couple days worth of rations-even less after certain supply runs-and he was pretty sure nothing in there would work. Settling himself cross-legged on the floor, he tipped the opened carton toward him, and rifled through the tan-coloured packages.

Chicken noodles. _Nope._ Roast Beef. _No way_. Chili and macaroni. Close, although he didn't relish the idea of picking out the noodles. Meatloaf. _Oh, yeah, sure._ Chicken with Thai sauce, chicken with salsa, chicken tetrazzini. _Don't like chicken, do you?_ He stopped, staring suspiciously at a dark brown package labeled Ham Patty. _Who threw one of Dad's old MRE's in here? The thing had to be forty years old!_

He chucked it to the back of the locker, and continued his search. Pasta and veggies? _Same problem as the chili._ Spaghetti? _Ditto._ Veggie Burger and BBQ sauce. _That might work._ He checked the package. Wheat snack bread, _okay, that'll do for a crust. But, damn, this one doesn't have cheese in it. _Setting the package aside, he dug through the others, searching for one containing a cheese packet. Preferably jalapeno.

The console beeped, reminding him of the interrupted systems check. While it wasn't vital, the procedure apparently didn't like hanging the way he'd left it. He tossed the Veggie Burger packet and a couple of other possibilities in the direction of the galley, and scooped the rest back in the locker.

The program had hung on the O2 tanks. He keyed in an answer-switching the tanks over-then closed out the protocol. It had only been a means of distracting him, anyway. Drumming his fingers on the console, he waited for the program to finish, impatient to get back to the galley.

Finally, the computer blinked back to automatic mode. A quick glance at the monitors-the typhoon was still crawling along, the Russians seemed to have the fire under control, and nothing else was clamoring for his attention. Satisfied, John shut down a few of the screens, reset a scanner, and then. . . .

_"Red alert!" _The emergency beacons flashed, interrupting his musings.

"What the . . . !" He scooted over to the main console his attention riveted by the monitor displaying the status of Thunderbird Five._ Ninety-one percent impact probability?_

_" Warning! Impact immanent."_ Mesmerized by the steady increase of the probability percentage, the warning slipped past his consciousness. _Ninety-two percent, ninety-three percent, ninety-four percent. . . . _

Stunned, he watched the numbers climb all the way to one hundred percent, before-belatedly-hitting first the emergency beacon, then the comm switch. "Thunderbird Five to Tracy Island!" he radioed, "Mayday! May!"

The blast caught him unprepared, cutting him off in mid-word. The panel exploded, blasting him down the short corridor behind the console. The shockwave flipped him-_ass end over teakettle-_and drove him into the grill several yards away, along with assorted debris from the console. The impact caused his vision first to white out, then blur and fade to grey. Dimly, he heard secondary explosions from the various electronic components. The greyness clung momentarily, as various areas of his body protested, then dissolved into blackness.

Almost fini (And we all know where this lead to)

Author's notes:

PMCS - Military acronym for Preventive Maintenance Checks and Services, which are procedures for the maintenance of military vehicles (doesn't matter WHAT vehicle, the procedures are still called PMCS). In face, my DHD still uses the acronym in reference to medical checkups for himself.

Apology-I really dislike the HMTL format that forces me to use. It's sloppy and difficult to set up a story properly-it mashes all the paragraphs together, and doesn't allow indented paragraphs. I have not yet figured out how to get around it, so the physical set-up of this story is not my fault.


End file.
